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Milk Soup

A creamy potato and leek soup thickened with tapioca and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and leek work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Milk Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Boil 2 quarts of water in a large saucepan.

  2. Wash, scrub, peel, and quarter the potatoes.

  3. Wash and chop the leeks (or onions).

  4. Melt the butter in a stewpan, add the vegetables, and sweat for 5 minutes.

  5. Pour the vegetables and butter into the boiling water, add salt and pepper.

  6. Boil until the mixture is soft and mashable.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain the soup through a colander or wire sieve.

  2. Rub the vegetables through the colander with a wooden spoon.

  3. Return the pulp and soup to the saucepan, add the milk, and bring to a boil.

  4. Gradually sprinkle in the tapioca while stirring continuously.

  5. Let it boil gently for 15 minutes.

  6. Serve the soup in a hot tureen.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Potato + leektop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  5. Leek + peppertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Break down into a soft pulp that gives the soup its body and thickness.
Leeks or onions
Sweated in butter first, building a mild, sweet aromatic base for the soup.
Butter
Sweats the vegetables and adds richness and a silky mouthfeel.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softness to the soup's flavour and texture.
Tapioca
Starch that thickens the soup as it boils gently.

The step that matters

Sprinkling in the tapioca. Tapioca must be added gradually while stirring continuously, otherwise it clumps and forms lumps instead of dispersing evenly. Starch thickens as it heats, so the soup needs to be kept moving while it cooks.

Swap the leek

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper, milk):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Leekthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, milk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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